How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media

Ahh, I’ve been planning to write this one for awhile: an entire article on archival quality media. As I do professional software development as well as professional photography (what a weird combination), I need archival quality CD and DVD media to store my data on.

However, one of the hardest things to is actually find good media, or even understand why it is good media. This article focuses on the history of Compact Discs, writable CD/DVD media, and why DVD+R is superior to DVD-R. If you want to just know what media is worth buying, skip to the summary at the bottom.

Short history of the Compact Disc
The invention of the Compact Disc has had a large impact on both music and computing in the last 20 years. Invented in 1979 as a joint project between Sony and Philips to counter the self-destructive nature of consumer audio playback (such as tapes and records that could only be played so many times before the recording degraded significantly) by switching to a resilient digital format.

The CD was also designed to store standard computer data, as in 1985 the first CD drives for computers were released; massive, bulky, and expensive, it was not until the mid-90s that they really took off, driven almost solely by video games and large multimedia applications.

In 1990, Sony and Philips went back to the drawing table, and then came out with the CD-R, a record-once medium. Yet again, the first CD burners were large, expensive, and bulky, but by the late 90s having a CD burner was the new ‘in’.

The first few generations of CD media, designed by Taiyo Yuden (a company who I respect, and buy all my archival quality media from), actually kind of sucked; it wasn’t until around 2000 that companies started producing very high end media.

CDs and DVDs store individual bits (encoded in various ways depending on the media) with spots of reflective and non-reflective areas. This method is called ‘pits and lands’, where pits ‘absorb’ light (ie, are ‘off’ bits) and lands ‘reflect’ light (ie, are ‘on’ bits).

With pressed media, the pressing method causes pits to reflect the laser’s light away from the sensor, and the lands to reflect it back at the sensor. With burned media, a high energy laser causes spots of organic dye to go opaque and obscure the reflective surface for the pits, leaving the organic dye for lands alone.

Short history of the DVD
While burning was becoming popular in the late 90s, so was playing high quality video on DVDs. Storing almost 7 times the data of a 700MB CD (or almost 13 in the case of dual layer DVDs), allowed companies to store massive amounts of data on one disc, leading to the movie industry to drop VHS tapes and the video game industry to drop CDs.

In 1995, the first DVD specification was ratified by over a dozen companies including Sony and Philips, as well as Thompson, Pioneer, and Mitsubishi. By 2000, at least half the homes in the US and Japan had DVD players.

So, obviously, the next step was to produce burnable DVDs. Two separate, and incompatible, efforts took hold. The first one, Pioneer’s DVD-R (pronounced ‘DVD dash R’) was released in 1997, using different data storage methods than pressed DVDs (appearing to be more like CD-R than DVD), a poor error correction scheme, and the ‘wobble’ laser tracking system of DVD-R is inadequate for the job.

The second effort, lead by the DVD+RW Alliance (headed by Sony, Philips, Mitsubishi, and Thompson) was released in 2002, as an alternative to the poorly implemented DVD-R. DVD+R uses a superior ‘wobble’ laser tracking system, a far better error correction method, and the media quality itself is typically higher. (See the ‘Why DVD+R?’ section below for a more technical explanation)

Why archival media is hard to produce
Unlike pressed CDs/DVDs, ‘burnt’ CDs/DVDs can eventually ‘fade’, due to five things that effect the quality of CD media: Sealing method, reflective layer, organic dye makeup, where it was manufactured, and your storage practices (please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media).

The silver and aluminum alloys used in virtually all blank CD/DVD media has one major issue, requiring the manufacturer to lacquer a protective seal over the entire disc: silver and aluminum oxidize when they hit air, turning the normally reflective layer into silver or aluminum rust. Some (very expensive) media uses gold instead which doesn’t oxidize, however DVD media cannot use gold due to design issues (not true anymore, see update 1 below). Today, only the cheapest of the cheap media has severe issues with sealing practices (as such, avoid any media made outside of Japan and Taiwan; especially avoid media made in India).

Assuming that the protective seal and reflective layer are manufactured correctly, the next issue is the organic dye. The first organic dyes, designed by Taiyo Yuden, were Cyanine-based and, under normal conditions, had a shelf life of around ten years; simply, that was simply unacceptable for archive discs. Taiyo Yuden, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Mitsui Co., and Ciba Specialty Chemicals spent the next ten years trying to produce the best organic dyes, eventually reaching archive-quality CD media.

Taiyo Yuden produced ‘Super Cyanine’, a chemically stabilized version of the original Cyanine dye designs, while TDK offers media that uses ‘metal-stabilized Cyanine’ dye, leading to similar shelf lives as Taiyo Yuden’s media. Taiyo Yuden states their Super Cyanine dye is chemically stable for at least 70 years, and TDK states their metal-stabilized Cyanine is also stable for 70 years.

On the other hand, Mitsubishi went in a different direction and produced what is called a Metal Azo dye, that they claim is stable for around 100 years. Azo dyes are chemically stable, however, the shelf life of media using Azo dyes typically does not exceed that of Super Cyanine and metal-stabilized Cyanine.

The third dye produced for CD media is called Phthalocyanine dye, with the majority of such dyes produced by Mitsui and Ciba. Typically marketed as more resistant to heat and UV radiation than Cyanine and Azo, modern Cyanine and Azo dyes last just as long in extreme conditions.

DVDs also use similar dyes, however manufacturers have intentionally kept what dyes they use a secret (instead of a feature in their marketing of the media), and all blank DVDs are intentionally the same color (as different dyes on CDs make blanks different colors, however, it is not indicative of what dye is used due to some manufacturers using different colored silver alloys and non-reactive additives in the dye).

Why Taiyo Yuden media, and how to buy in the US
The best discs in circulation tend to be Taiyo Yuden media. In Japan, you find their media under the brand That’s, which are wholly owned by Taiyo Yuden.

As of late 2009, Taiyo Yuden announced they were buying the JVC Advanced Media brand, and making it a wholly owned and operated brand for TY products. They did this to put Taiyo Yuden products on store shelves worldwide. See update 4 at the bottom for a full explanation.

Simply put, I have never had problems with any kind of Taiyo Yuden media. Ever. I have bought CDs and DVDs under a dozen different brands (including non-Taiyo Yuden manufactured TDK and Verbatim), and the only ones that have had a 100% success rate is Taiyo Yuden.

If you cannot find any company selling media under the Taiyo Yuden/JVC Advanced Media brand, I suggest buying from the SuperMediaStore.com, who offer a wide range of Taiyo Yuden CD media, DVD-R media, and DVD+R media. I tend to buy just from them, as they are the only company that guarantees that their media is actually from Taiyo Yuden and not a fake (see the above linked FAQ on information about fake Taiyo Yuden media).

Why DVD+R?
This is the most technical section of the article. If you don’t understand the basics of how CD/DVD media works, or find such technical discussions boring, skip to the next section.

As I said earlier, DVD-R sucks for data preservation for three reasons: inferior error correction, inferior ‘wobble’ tracking, and the fact its data writing methods look like an un-needed halfway point between CD-R and DVD+R. The wobble tracking I shall explain first, then the error corrections method, then the specifics of ATIP/pre-pit/ADIP optimum power settings.

For a CD/DVD burner to track where it is on the disc, it uses three things: the ‘wobble’ of the data track (where it actually wobbles back and forth instead of in a straight line) to tell where it is in the track, the position of the track to tell where it is on the disc, and some additional information on the disc to tell where the track (singular, as CDs and DVDs only have one track, and it is written in a concentric spiral) begins and ends.

This additional information on a CD-R is called the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pregroove), which contains how long the track is, where it begins, what the maximum and minimum writing speeds are, what formula dye it uses, who actually made it, optimum power control settings, and error correction data. The ATIP is stored as a frequency modulation in the wobble itself.

However, since the wobble changes subtly to encode data, it is impossible to use with the small size of tracks DVD requires, as electric noise in the laser pickup and wobbles introduced by the electric motor spinning the disc, these could easily be read as frequency changes in the real track itself.

On DVD-R, they tried to solve the problem with something called ‘pre-pits’ where spikes in the amplitude of the wobble appear due to pits fully out of phase with the rest of the track (ie, between two spirals of the track, where there is no data). This can be viewed as a simple improvement over CD-R as it makes it easier to track the wobble (since the wobble is constant except for the easy to detect and remove spikes).

Unfortunately, this method as one flaw: due to electric noise in the laser pickup, it would be very easy to miss the pre-pit (or read one that wasn’t actually there) if the disc were damaged or spun at fast speeds. The time to read a pre-pit is 1T (roughly .0000000038th of a second), which even for a computer can be easy to miss. DVD-R traded hard to track frequency changes for hard to read wobble-encoded data.

On a DVD+R, however, they came up with a much better method. Instead of changing the frequency of the wobble, or causing amplitude spikes in the wobble, they use complete phase changes. Where CD-R’s and DVD-R’s methods make you choose between either easy wobble tracking or easy ATIP reading, DVD+R’s method makes it very easy to track the wobble, and also very easy to encode data into the wobble. DVD+R’s method is called ADIP (ADdress In Pre-groove), which uses a phase change method.

With ADIPs’ phase changes, the direction of the wobble changes and continues on going in the exact opposite direction (ie, counter-clockwise to clockwise, or the reverse). For example, if the wobble was ‘going up’, the phase change causes it to instantly reverse direction start ‘going down’ no matter where it in the wobble cycle. The phase change is very easy to detect, and also continues for a set period (in this case, one 32T section of the track, or 32 times longer than the pre-pit method of DVD-R).

The state of the phase change (clockwise or counter-clockwise) encodes the individual bits in each block In essence, with the phase change method, not only do you have an easy way of tracking the wobble, but you now have an easy way of reading wobble-encoded data.

As I mentioned earlier, this wobble-encoded data includes error correction of wobble-encoded data itself. Error correction is the most important part of media, because if it does not work, then you’ve lost your data, even if there is nothing seriously wrong with the disc.

The DVD-R specification states that for every 192 bits, 64 of them are not protected under any scheme, 24 of them are protected by 24 bits of parity, and the last 56 bits are protected by another 24 bits of parity. This weird (to put it mildly) scheme allows you to easily scramble or lose 25% of the data that is required to read your disk! This information is almost more important than the actual data burned on the disc itself.

The DVD+R specification, however, states that for every 204 bits of information, it is split into four blocks of 52 bits containing 1 sync bit to prevent misreading because of phase changes, 31 bits of data, and a 20 bit parity (that protects all 32 bits of data). The sync bit is always the same value in all four blocks, and exists only to prevent phase inversions.

Now, the third item on the list: how DVD+R discs burn better. As I said earlier, ATIP/pre-pit/ADIP stores information about optimum power control settings. This information is basically formulas stating how much output power is needed, what the laser startup power should be, and other pieces of information you require to properly burn a DVD.

Optimum power control output is dependent on three things: burning speed, laser wavelength, and information given to the drive about the media. DVD-R basically fails on all three accounts because DVD+R simply includes far more information about the media in the ADIP data than DVD-R does in it’s pre-pit data.

DVD+R includes four optimum profiles, one for four major burning speeds (usually 2x, 4x, 6x, and 8x, though this can change as speeds increase). Each of these profiles include optimum power output based on laser wavelength, more precise laser power settings, and other additional information. With this information, any DVD+R burner can far more optimize it’s burning strategy to fit the media than it can with DVD-R, consistently providing better burns.

For comparison, DVD-R includes one profile, optimum power output based for that one profile only and uncalibrated towards what wavelength it is for, less precise laser power settings, and no other additional information. Typically, DVD-R burners have to already know how to burn a certain piece of media (and include this information in their firmwares) before they can properly burn to it. New media often is not properly supported.

In addition to the optimum power control profiles, DVD+R also gives four times more scratch space for the drive to calibrate the laser on; more space can only improve the calibration quality. So, in short, DVD+R media exists to simply produce better burns and protect your data better.

And finally, the end of the article…
Finally, after roughly three pages of technical discussion, we arrive at the end of my dissertation on archival quality CD/DVD media. So, you’re probably now wondering, in simple terms, what media do I recommend?

To begin with, I do not recommend CD-RW, DVD-RW, or DVD+RW media in any form for permanent storage. This is mostly a no-brainer, but those discs are meant to be able to be changed after burning, and they are simply unsuitable for long-term archival storage. I also do not recommend DVD-R media due to DVD+R’s superior error correction and burning control.

That said, I recommend Taiyo Yuden media across the board. Taiyo Yuden currently manufactures 52x CD-R, 16x DVD-R, and 16x DVD+R media in normal shiney silver, inkjet printable, and thermal printable forms. Taiyo Yuden may be one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive), but their media quality is unsurpassed. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I recommended buying from SuperMediaStore.com as they are the only online US distributor that guarantees that their Taiyo Yuden media is certified as coming from Taiyo Yuden.

So, what am I using? Due to Taiyo Yuden’s superior media quality, and DVD+R’s superior design, I use only Taiyo Yuden DVD+R media. I recommend this media to everyone who wishes to keep their data for a long, long time.

Update 1: It seems MAM-A and Kodak actually has managed to make a gold DVD, though no one else seems to be manufacturing them (Taiyo Yuden/JVC Advanced Media now makes an archival gold disc, see update 6). However, MAM-A’s gold archival media still doesn’t seem to exceed TY quality (although Mr 60,000 in the comments below puts TY second best to MAM-A). Due to the extreme cost of gold archival media ($2+ a disc) with very little increased protection (if any), I’ll still say TY media is better. I want to see more independent tests on this before I change my recommendation.

In addition, I’d like to mention that Verbatim has been relabeling other brands of disc as their own. If the box/spindle/cakebox the discs come in don’t say they’re manufactured with Verbatim’s proprietary Azo dye (sometimes called Advanced Azo, sometimes not, depending on the product) then they aren’t Verbatim media at all and should be avoided as they may not meet typical home archival standards.

Update 2: (Sept. 19th 2007) Its almost been a year since I first wrote this article. My recommendations for media have not changed, my recommendations for DVD burners have.

Samsung: Samsung is currently producing two drives worth owning, the
Samsung SH-S222AB (SATA). They’re not considered archival grade, but they’re not bad.

TEAC: TEAC makes an archival drive that is ISO/IEC10995 compliant, and is very expensive. Comes in two forms, external USB DV-W5000U and internal SATA DV-W5000S. I’ve seen DV-W5000U drives for sale for $500, and refurbished DV-W5000S drives for $150-200. This is the elite of drives, and recommended if you’re very serious about 30+ year archival storage.

Update 3: (July 26th 2009) Its been awhile since I updated this article. Pioneer is no longer manufacturing drives worth using. Just buy a Samsung or TEAC drive like I link to above. I’m using two Samsung drives now after my PX-716 finally died after years of service.

My recommendation on TY and Verbatim hasn’t changed, and I imagine it will never change; DVD media will not change significantly from here on out. Bluray in my opinion is not worth switching over to unless you’re storing data that can be measured in hundreds of gigabytes, and at that point you might want to look into archival tape storage.

When Bluray is worth switching over to, I’ll write a follow up article to this one. High quality single layer media will have to drop below 50 cents a piece and Bluray burners will have to become ubiquitous (much like DVD burners are now) before that happens. I’m thinking 2011 or later.

Update 4: (August 3rd 2010) Taiyo Yuden has bought the JVC Media brand and is now operating under the JVC Advanced Media brand. You can now buy TY inside JVC boxes and get your usual TY quality. This site has the conversion of part numbers.

JVC has not bought Taiyo Yuden, and Taiyo Yuden is in full control of this new venture. They merely bought they name so they can put TY products on store shelves worldwide.

SuperMediaStore.com is selling almost all JVC Advanced Media branded TY products in place of the old TY branded ones.

Update 5: (September 27th 2011) A few people have asked about how PIE/PIF scans work.

DVD-R and DVD+R both employ two stage error correction.

PIE (Parity Inner Error) just means error correction was used, PIF (Parity Inner Failure) means the error was unrecoverable using the inner ECC block but still may be recovered using the outer ECC block . On tools that give avg/max/total, max PIE values above 140, or max PIF values above 4* means the disc needs to be replaced but the data most likely isn’t corrupted yet**.

For a burn to be considered still pristine you want max PIE below 20 and max PIF 3 or lower.

Discs will NOT be pristine after 5 years, but there is a fall off of PIF/PIE increasing after 6 months and doesn’t seem to start picking up again until 5-10 years depending on storage environment.

Totals for PIF can be as high as 100k yet have a max of 20, and total PIF can be as high as 1000 but have a max below 3. Max PIE is considered mostly fatal above 280 and can reach as high as 1664, and max PIF can reach as high as 208*.

DVD+R generally will maintain lower values for both due to superior error correction techniques.

* Some tools and/or drives won’t list above 4 for PIF.

** Some tools and/or drives also list PO (Parity Outer) uncorrectable errors. This is for any read that has a max PIF above 4. This indicates a mostly unrecoverable data corruption error, which would effect (if I’ve done my math right) 36k of data (although that doesn’t mean the whole 36k of data is corrupted, just that its corrupted inside of that 36k). This still does not indicate the disc is unreadable, some obsessive ripping tools will try multiple reads in an effort to get a valid read or different incorrect reads that can be merged into a valid read.

Also, a few people have asked when I’m going to write that Bluray follow up article. I don’t think Bluray is viable for long term archival storage yet. I continue my recommendation that if you need to store hundreds of gigabytes of data or more, consider archival tape.

Thank you for this excellent article. It seems to be the definitive layman’s guide to optical archival on the internet.
In an earlier update, you mention that BlueRay seems to be an inevitable eventual direction as archive sets reach into the TB. Have you formed any opinions on drives and media in that space yet?

TY makes BD-Rs now, but the price is still so expensive that it just doesn’t seem worth it. If you need to archive hundreds of GB of data (dozens of BD-Rs), you should be looking at tape archival anyhow.

Depends on entirely what you need. If you intend on writing on them by hand or using an expensive thermal printer, you get the thermal printable ones, if you have an inkjet printer with a CD tray, you get the white inkjet printable ones, if you have an inkjet printer with white ink (rare, often marketed for CDs and transparencies only) you get the clear/silver inkjet printable ones.

Thankws for answer – I have an EPSON R1800 inkjet printer – on SuperMedia site the VERBATIM ULTRA GOLD ARCHIVAL Grade 8X are among the 3 shown – I could not find any TY archival, but saw TY R47WPP6005K DVD-R listed -(I guess that this is not archival???) – which would you recommend for long time storage?? thanks again, Ron

one more question – of the VERBATUM ULTRA LIFE GOLD ARCHIVAL DVD-R(from SUPER-MEDIA) or the JVC ISO CERTIFIED from TAITO YUDEN DVD-R(but supplied from MEDIA SUPPLY,since SUPER MEDIA does not carry them!)which you recommend for archival storage??? thanks again, Ron

Is that the new stuff that they just came out with that have their own super optimized drive? A rep from JVC/TY emailed me about those, they look really good.

If you can chase some down and buy the matching external drive built by TEAC, I think they’re worth the money, but its starting to go into enterprise archival prices and that entire market is locked down by enterprise tape.

I just got a call from SuperMedia who recommended the JVC-TY Silver Lacquer(Premium Line)DVD-R at $30.99 for 100, which they consider ARCHIVAL! They do not carry the JDMR – 150 – WPY-25 -PC, which are the JVC-TY ISO certified Archival DVD-R at $99.00 for 25($4 per DVD) claiming they are too expensive and did not sell! Your advice would be appreciated, thanks,the certified archival are 13 times more expensive! Do you are they worth the price difference??? Ron

Although its a brand new product, it probably is worth the money, but as I said, IF you buy the matching JVC/TY archival burner. I should go talk to the rep I know at SuperMediaStore and tell him to stock them.

One last question, do you agree with SuperMedia that the JVC-TY Silver Lacquer(Premium Line)DVD-R at $30.99 for 100, which they consider ARCHIVAL, is really an archival disk???? and would you use it for archival purposes????, thanks, Ron

TY DVD-R comes in Premium/Archival line and Value line. DVD+R only comes in Premium/Archival line, and TY does not bother labeling them as such as there can be no confusion (although, I’d love to inform them differently).

TY DVD-R Premium and TY DVD+R are identical in quality, DVD+R wins out due to what I described in the article.

Wondering what sort of longevity one can expect. Or if it’s ‘testable’. I’ve recently had the need to restore from some DVDs from prox. 5 yrs ago. I was surprised that in some cases the -cheap- ones were more reliably than the -expensive- Verbatims. Is there some way to -test- or -know- the MTBF of a DVD+R when it’s first burned?

TY media is the most counterfeited brand on eBay. I can’t comment on the quality of yours, but there is a reason I recommended SuperMediaStore, its the only company I’ve verified to be selling the real thing.

Cyanine isn’t a coating, its the organic dye. All burnable CDs and DVDs use an organic dye that is either cyanine-based or functionally identical.

The print surface coating doesn’t effect the performance of the media, you just buy whichever one best matches your printing solution (inkjet, thermal printing, etc). I just use silver lacquer for hand writing using a Sanford Sharpie CD/DVD pen.

SuperMediaStore is the only reseller that I’ve confirmed is an authorized reseller, which is why I recommend them. TY is the most counterfeited brand out there.

As for which burner, I still recommend Samsung burners unless you want to go see if you can get that new optimized burner from JVC Advanced Media that is based on that TEAC design.

OSX is compatible with all SATA, Firewire, and USB burners as far as I know.

The DVD+R media part of all of those discs are identical, the only difference is the top layer coating for printing. TY makes many different kinds, including white inkjet, clear inkjet, and silver lacquer. I use silver lacquer and Sanford Sharpie CD/DVD pens and very carefully mark them, Sharpie ink will rub/scratch off on silver lacquer if you’re not careful.

Speed time, obviously, takes approximately half the time on 16x.

I recommend you avoid all laptop drives, they tend to have very low quality and also produce discs of very low quality.

JVC Advanced Media (aka TY) has an external TEAC-made industrial drive, model DV-W5000S-76, but I can’t see it for sale anywhere. See the bottom of this page. It looks nice, but since they just came out with it no one seems to carry it yet.

And yes, use DVD storage cases or jewel cases. Make sure they use higher grade plastic, if the plastic feels greasy don’t use them.

Yeah, I don’t like this idea of special burners. I don’t care how perfect their media is, anything that requires a special burner will not be perfectly compatible with generic DVD drives no matter what they claim. Millennium Disc tries to make the same claim, and I think they went out of business as well.

There is a reason why we have standards, it’d be great if everyone followed them.

And what is the best way to store them? felt case, paper sleeve, plastic jewel case, spindle? I’m no expert of any sort, just have ALOT of digital pics that I need to archive and want to make sure they don’t get compromised while in storage on these disks.. Thanks.

I still prefer full sized jewel case or full sized DVD cases using real polystyrene (low grade Chinese knockoffs have a greasy feel to them and may react with discs over long term storage). They sell 6 and 8 disc DVD cases, so if you’re short on storage room you might want to look into those. NEVER use felt, paper, or spindle storage as it can scratch the disc.

Someone recently said that CDs and DVD aren’t going to be going away anytime soon.

Sorry to rain on everyone’s parade, but has anyone checked the Auto aisle of Best Buy? Except for the old audio systems, CD players are gone, replaced with USB / phone connections.

And once one segment of a market has excluded a product, the rest will certainly follow, for the simple reason that we, as consumers, want portability. If we can’t take the CD / DVD into the car, why bother with it at all. I’ll buy a 64G thumb drive for <$100, have capacity to carry 15 movies, or a whole buttload of music, plus I can also carry important documents on it, and plug it in to my car, home media system, phone, etc.

By 2020, Our (grand) children will be looking at CDs & DVDs like us (our children) looked at cassettes (much less 8-track or vinyl).

This may be heretical on this discussion post, but it seems to be a legitimate question.
I asked a salesman at Best Buy to direct me to their archival discs. He said they had none, AND “why would anyone want a 30 year life disc in today’s world? 30 years from now, discs and disc writers will be about as common usable and practical as 8-track audio cassettes and 12 inch vinyl records are today. Mainly, the province of hobbyists and “old stuff” antiquers. You need to stop with the archival discs and get with something that is not going to be a fringe weirdo product 30 years from now. Get a hard drive. Or a bunch of flash USB sticks. Or ANYTHING but a disc.”

1) Is there something to what he says, or not? Discs are wonderful now, but it seems he has a valid point.

2) Is there anything NOW (USB thumb drive sticks or whatever) that I can consider as an alternative to archival DVDs?

That guy was an idiot. The first commercial CD player went on sale in 1974, or 38 years ago. There is no reason to believe CDs and DVD/Blurays will not be sold for another 20. In the event of CD readers no longer being in production (ie, more than 20 years from now), you can always switch formats.

USB flash sticks cannot be trusted because flash (USB, SD, CF, etc) tends to go blank after a few years.

The problem with that guy’s argument (and by proxy, yours) is people didn’t make their own 8 track tapes or vinyl records. You don’t have home videos stored on them, or important financial documents, or anything else like that. Due to the shear amount of unique irreplaceable personal data on disc format, I cannot see disc drives stopping production for a very long time.

Eventually cloud services will be stable and common place, but that won’t be for another 10-15 years at least, so there simply is no other alternative.

Just a small correction: the first CD players were not available until 1982. It doesn’t takes away from your solid argument that optical discs will be around for at least a couple more decades, however, in 1974 the CD was but a twinkle in the eye of one of the Sony LaserDisc engineers (or, at the very least, still in prototype).

Just came across your excellent article when doing a Google search for archival DVDs. You recommend DVD+R over DVD-R; however, on the supermediastore.com site, there don’t seem to be any JVC Advanced/TY +Rs, and, checking with Google, the great majority of gold DVDs are DVD-Rs. Any suggestions on a seller for the +Rs?

On the Web site,I don’t see any JVC/Taiyo Yuden DVD+Rs with gold lacquer; there are some with silver lacquer at $39.99 for a spindle of 100. The site cdrdvdrmedia.com has JVC/Taiyo Yuden gold lacquer disks (VP-R47HG100) at $29.99 for 100. Are these actually of archival quality?

Just noticed that JVC has launched a new line of “Archival Grade DVD-R” products that are “ISO/IEC 10995 Certified” and claim, “The certified results for our products depict an archival life of more than 30 years.” The part number is: J-DMR-ISO-WPY25-HC (http://jvc-media.com/archives/index.html)

At a current price of almost $4 a disk, they think they’re something special. Wondering if you agree or have any information on how much better these disks would be compared to the 70 year dye lifetimes mentioned in your article?

Is the 50 pack of the JVC “premium grade” considered archival quality? The labelling and title suggests otherwise (when compared to the authoritative label of the TY cake box). I don’t think I will use a 100 disc pack quick enough, hence my decision to consider purchasing the 50 pack instead.

I think those discs might be labeled wrong. They are clearly not TY manufactured JVC, TY makes no gold alloy products. Also, Supermedia store lists two different brands, JVC for non-TY JVC products, and TY for the new JVC Advance Media branded stuff.

Might as well get a 100 disc pack, they’re cheap and you can keep them on the shelf (as long as the cakebox is shut, it seals properly and keeps out environmental damage), and they don’t seem to degrade before being burned.

Looking at Taiyou Yuden/JVC, I see various silver DVD options and one gold option branded as a JVC/ Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, and about $0.36 per disk. The silver ones look to be about $0.32 per disk. What if any would be the advantage to the “gold” compared to the various silver ones?

It probably is not in contact with the surface and is barely not touching it. Prevents accidental disc bending when removing the disc. Old style jewel cases cause way too much disc flex. Even if the disc touches a little, real PP Poly cases will not react with the disc.

I have some family oral histories which I recorded onto Verbatim CD-R disks before I knew to look for better-quality disks. (No mention on them of Azo dye, but there are some Japanese characters I can’t read.) I’m assuming I should rerecord onto higher quality disks? Can I copy from the Verbatims or should I go all the way back to my audio cassettes, which is more of a pain (but I will if I need to) ? Also, I had always assumed I should end up on DVDs with these histories because at some point CDs will be obsolete. Should I do that now or simply ride into the future on good quality CD-Rs, knowing that in 20 years (last chance I’ll have to update in my lifetime) there’ll be some new format to jump to?